


Down by the water

by DalekLetoEndeavour



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Case Fic, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, I'm Sorry, Injured David Rossi, M/M, Phone Calls & Telephones, Podfic Welcome, Serial Killers, Team as Family, Worst-Case Scenario Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:40:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24448987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DalekLetoEndeavour/pseuds/DalekLetoEndeavour
Summary: You've got one call left don't waste it DaveFirst Rossi/Hotch story oh gosh
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner/David Rossi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 38





	Down by the water

**Author's Note:**

> Proverb 
> 
> we would be together and have our books and at night be warm in bed together with the windows open and the stars bright.” ― Ernest Hemingway

"One call." The hooded son of a bitch kicked a phone in his latest victims direction after he had made some severe insitions to worsen his conditions. "Make it count." He said before leaving the room back into darkness, to watch his end from a save distance.

Knowing this was the end of the line he'd known whom to call without a second of remorse.

"From what we know about the unsub will present us a new gift in the next hour and we're nowhere near any real lead." Morgan leaned back in his chair. They had been on the case since 72 hrs with six victims in the morgue.   
Number seven was already bleeding somewhere to death injected with an job lethal dose of quicksilver. Someone would receive a call between now and the end of the hour, witnessing the dying of their loved one without being able to send help.  
At the end of the the police would receive and untraceable message containing coordinates where to find them.

Reid who's eyes were fixed on the board wanderd over to the clock. Any minute now, he thought.  
And it was in that moment when their head of the team received a call.

Aaron starred at the unknown number, somewhere Boston,  
for a minute before picking up, mind racing to the worst scenarios already. Reid glaced at him a voiceless "weird" on his lips, his mind already working out the possibilities if it was the unsub calling.  
"Hotchner?" "Aaron it's me. Ehmm do me a favour don't hang up on me no matter what I say, it's kinda important." "Hold on I put you on spea..." "No don't and no need to trace my phone. This is between us. Good old talk remember?"  
That's what got him worried and his mind racing.  
"Dave can you tell me where you are?" 

The team looked up, Morgan was already ready to get Garcia on the line.  
"Boston. The Book remember?  
just got half an hour left till the curtains falls."

Aaron signed and shook his head in the direction of his team before leaving the room.   
"Son of a bitch got you didn't he?" "Can't I call you without any second thoughts?"

There was a long stretched sign at the other end on the line so Dave continued talking without waiting for an answer. "I've ment to tell you this a while ago... there was just never the right time." "Dave whatever it is tell me in person." Aarons heart skipped a couple of beats , he held onto the door phrame for support letting his gaze wander across the station. "Just let me talk me man." He scoffed feeling how his breathing got heavier and raspier. Almost ready to give in to the sweet slumber his body was gasping for. "Dave we're gonna find you."

It got harder to focus with every minute.  
There was a dull feeling in his head which soon would turn into a pounding migraine. He digged his nails into the palm of hand to stay focussed. It cannot be unsaid. This was the last chance he will ever get to tell him. He had to...  
Arron deserved to know the truth.  
How he made everyday bearable.

How long until the inevitable  
He did not dare to think about   
He had to keep in the now 

Not long until   
Not enough 

To much time has already been wasted.

"I love you. I've always loved you. From the moment you dragged me into the Bureo and gave me those kids to look after. You have me so much more than that. You gave me a family. And I'm sorry I was to much of a coward to tell you this until now."

There was silence.   
Three heart beats full of silence.  
An eternity full of painful silence.  
Then a deep breath at the other end. 

So Rossi picked up the conversation again.  
"This is not how I imagined to tell you either. I had it all planned out you know. Dinner at my place, a bottle of wine from home at the campfire." He heard a soft chuckle at the end of the line, which made him smile through the pain which was increasingly taking over his senses.  
"I'm sorry I never took my chance when I had it. Tell the team... tell them it's been an honour..."   
"Dave please this is not the end."

The pain behind his temple craved for relieve.  
Aspirin ?  
A bullet ?  
Anything really that would make it stop.  
The thunding just increases with every minute while his vision started to get more blurry and the colours faded more towards grey.  
He began to shiver. It started down by his feet, not noticed till it had reached his arms when the phone, an old Nokia one the kids these days make memes about, appeared to have been replaced by solid concret blocks.  
Slumped to the side with it, cause it took of the weight.   
"Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead."   
"You're not dead yet. Just stay with me okay? We will find you."  
Rossi smiled as he curled up, knowing it's gonna be too late. Knowing they had been past the point of no return. The chance of recovery after rescue. As his mouth filled with the gruesome taste of iron he knew it was time. "I will be waiting for you as always, don't be late." He mused coughing, spitting while a threatening beeping was heard.  
"I wouldn't dare. And hey Dave I....." 

And that's when the connection was interrupted.  
The battery was dead.  
It had met it's end before it's latest victim did.  
Keats once wrote something about dying in agony over a love unrequited.  
He clearly knew how it came equal to a quicksilver poisoning.  
Rossi tried his best to reactivate the phone but failed.  
Not willing to accept his defeat he clinged onto the phone as his mussels started to cramp and he lost his vision.

The last thing he heard we're distant shoots.

And then there was warmth and light surrounding him.

..........................  
Come away little loss come away to the water  
To the ones that are waiting only for you  
Come away little loss come away to the water  
Away from the life that you always knew  
We are calling to you  
Come away little light  
Come away to the darkness  
In the shade of the night we'll come looking for you  
...............................

Garcia had the coordinates ready within moments.   
Being use to being liked into such conversation she stayed silent but tears streamed down her face as she follows the conversation and was running it against the time they had left.  
Her heart shattering into million pieces like Cinderellas glass slippers when she realised that Rossis phone had died before he had heared the words he had provably longed to her so close to...  
Blinking away tears.

No   
No   
And no.  
They're going to be fine.   
They will find him.

Yes they, the team, found him.  
But in no condition whatsoever called being alive.  
David Rossi was a fighter, his heart was not yet ready to give up, but his senses have given up on him.

It had been Reid who found him and who had checked his vital signs.  
But it had been Aaron who had hold him during those final moments.   
Dave could have recognised those rough hands out of a million.

Maybe he was delusional and he was still alone, but he rather greeted death with the illusion of a beloved person holding him than solitude.

"We're here Dave as promised." half whispered half sobbed their fearless leader.   
Sirens of an approaching  
ambulance were roaring.

Morgan directed them where to go.

They took the dying agent in immediately.  
Hooked him up on an IV and oxygen, in a last desperate attempt to save his life.  
But even they must had known how inevitable this situation was.   
They rushed to the hospital sirens whaling but when they were gone silence had took over and covert the three men like a suffocating blanket.

Just when Morgan wanted to open his mouth to say something along the lines of, condolences and reassurance, Hotchs phone announced a flood of incomming message from an unknown sender.  
Containing the exact location they were at, followed by an enraged smiley and last but not least a short gif of their final moments with David, with the focus on them both.

**Author's Note:**

> Epilogue 
> 
> In the night of death, hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.
> 
> Robert Green Ingersoll


End file.
